Goodbye Alvin, We'll miss you!

Today we looked in the fish bowl and discovered Alvin laying lifeless on the bottom. Tonight we had a fish funeral. Daddy held the bowl with Alvin still inside and said some very nice words. Then daddy poured Alvin in the toilet and Ashton did the honors of flushing. Then the children were crying and crying.
mom: "I'm so sorry why are you so sad?"
A: "I miss Alvin!"
S: " I don't think I was a very good owner."
A: "me either."
mom: You both were great owners, it's not your fault Alvin died, fish just don't live very long but he lived with us for almost 2 years, that's a long time. He probably got to cold in his water since it is so cold in our house now at night.
MORE CRYING and LOTS OF TEARS
mom: what did Alvin do for you?
A: he was a good fish!
s: yeah!
Mom: you liked to watch him swim around?
A: yeah!
S: I remember when I named him Alvin.
MORE tears!
I then brought up a funny Phineas and Ferb episode where Buford is crying hysterically because he lost his fish. The kids started remembering and telling me what happened next and the crying slowed to a halt and then we were able to go brush teeth and get to bed.
Alvin you were a good fish!

A Birthday and a Funeral

A busy busy day! Woke up early this morning to hang up our Happy Birthday banner and make our birthday girl some Chocolate Chip pancakes. Hurried along to get to the church by 8:00am because it was our turn to help clean. Again hurried to get home and showered so we could attend Grandma Maryann's Funeral.
Maryann is my step-dad's (Chris) mother. What a beautiful service. I knew Maryann had done alot in her lifetime but WOW! She had two Master degrees and her Real Estate License. She belonged to several Choral Societies. She was a soloist and had leading roles in several productions, she was the Musical Director of several productions. She had several recordings including The King and I and Saturday's Warrior. She had 5 children. She had a highly trained voice and was a beautiful vocalist. A truly amazing person!

At the graveside...

Chris dedicated the grave and it was lightly raining the whole time and then...
Chase, Chris and ShaneI told Sierra that the flower is Grandma Maryann's birthday present to her.
Ashton and Nixon were having way to much fun playing in the rain during the dedication.

it started pouring. It was even raining under the canopy they had set up for us. We ran to the car. Everyone was soaking wet! The rain held up long enough to get the job done and then Heavenly Father said okay that's it go eat your lunch.

My mom told us that Maryann loved the rain so it was very appropriate that it was raining.
Grampy announced that it is Sierra's Birthday and everyone sang Happy Birthday to her. She came back to the table and told me that she really liked that. She thought that Grampy was mad at her and she was going to get in trouble because when he asked her to come over she was playing with the chairs. When she realized that she was not in trouble and everyone was going to sing to her she was thrilled! :)
NOW IT'S TIME TO PARTY! All of our family came over to our house for cookies and milk. We made special cookies for Sierra's birthday. They had chocolate chips in them and Reeses peanut butter chips. They were delicious!

Her cookie is drowning, she put it in her milk and then walked away from the table. :)We played Secret Sierra. We printed out a picture of Sierra on cardstock and Sierra secretly stuck it on a family member's back when they came in the house. When they discovered it on their back they needed to sign it and then secretly stick it on someone else's back. It was really fun and very funny! The kids loved it!
We also played Sierra's Favorite Things. Everyone got a piece of paper with questions about Sierra's Favorite Things. Also very funny! When Sierra gives her answers some people do not agree. :)
Her new outfit from Justice. Nana and Papa took her shopping in the afternoon and she was putting on a fashion show. Sierra felt very loved! We have a great family!
After the party we went to Dad's for pizza and salad. A great day!